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Jaromir Jagr Gets an Assist — and a Loss — in His K.H.L. Debut

By Jeff Z. Klein September 3, 2008 11:39 amSeptember 3, 2008 11:39 am

Jaromir Jagr earned an assist after just 6 minutes and 18 seconds of his K.H.L. career, setting up countryman Pavel Rosa for a goal that put Avangard Omsk up 1-0 in their season opener at Ak Bars Kazan. But Jagr was shut down the rest of the way, and Ak Bars wound up winning, 4-2, thanks to two late power-play goals by longtime Russian superstar Alexei Morozov.

The Snow Leopards-Hawks game, the featured event on the second day of K.H.L. play, took place at the Tatneft Arena in Kazan, Tatarstan. The minute-by-minute translutsya of the match is found at this link on the allhockey.ru site.

Video highlights, set to a pulsing chillout techno score, are available on the K.H.L. web site at this link. Ak Bars in green, Avangard in white. These are the goals you’ll see:

Or you can watch them here, on a YouTube video (sans music) posted by an Ak Bars dvd site:

In the nets for Ak Bars was Wade Dubielewicz; for Avangard, John Grahame. The men behind the bench are, for Ak Bars, the legendary Soviet-era player Zinetula Bilyayetdinov and, for Avangard, Sergei Gersonskiy.

Ak Bars won despite the absence of last year’s top scorer in the Swedish Elitserien, Tony Martensson; Phoenix refugee Niko Kapanen; ex-Hab Oleg Petrov; and former AHL/NHL journeyman Nikita Alexeev. All are expected to return to the lineup soon.

You might also care to know that according to allhockey’s game summary, spectators in the Tatneft were treated to a pre-match video and laser show that informed Ak Bars fans that “Hawk-hunting season is now open.” Perhaps you noticed the trim on the sleeves of the Avangard sweaters that look like feathers. Look closely; they’re there.

Some other K.H.L. action you can watch: this clip from Wednesday’s first match, way, way east in Khabarovsk, where Amur hosted Dinamo Riga for a second straight day. Here’s what happened when Amur pulled their goalie late to try to tie the score:

That’s Calgary native Kyle Wanvig scoring the goal with just 35 seconds left, which enabled Amur to win in a penalty shootout. Wanvig split the last several seasons between AHL clubs and Minnesota and Tampa. Tonight he’s a hero on the Chinese border, 5,300 miles east of Moscow.

For more KHL results, see the “News of Hockey” column on the right side of the blog.

Here’s the winning goal in the Magnitka-SKA match, as Denis Platonov is left wide-open in front and beats SKA goalie Robert Esche to the short side with less than eight minutes left.

I watched this game online and it was a pretty entertaining match, despite the small screen. jagr controlled the puck well down low but didnt really generate much in terms of chances. mrozov and zaripov are pretty fun to watch together. zaripov scored on an insane wrist shot from, and morozov scored the last two late in the third to win it. morozov could put up some big points in the nhl but he obviously looks pretty happy in kazan.

jeff – just a question, im curious what your background is with respect to the russian language, country, etc. im very happy that you’re devoting so much space to the khl. please keep it up.

[JZK: I decided to take Russian as a high school student in Buffalo around the time of the 1972 Canada-USSR Summit Series (the most dramatic sports event I’ve ever seen, by the way). I knew my extremely limited knowledge of Russian would come in handy someday. Rajeev, where did you watch the game online?]

man, after poking around wikipedia, i didnt see a single arena there with a capacity greater than 10000. Many were less than 6000. how do they stay in business?

Poor Dubie, living in freaking Tartarstan?

[JZK: Right, Go Sabres, all the rinks in Russia are 10,000 or less — but they’re all brand-new, having replaced rinks that held around 5,000. Most clubs are bankrolled by regional governments and oil and gas companies. Ak Bars are funded by Tatneft, the local oil company, and the Tatarstan government, which sees the club as an expression of ethnic and regional pride. Kazan is a city of one million, though I don’t know how it stacks up against Hempstead for culture. (Just kidding!)]

I was trying to find a telecast of my Dinamo Riga vs. Amur Khabarovsk 2nd game, but it was not broadcast on Russian national TV so there was no video on the KHL / Sportsbox sites. Thanks for the YT link. That must’ve been recorded off the local Khabarovska channel. Would’ve loved to have seen this one as it was a crazy game judging from all the reports. Back and forth and ended up 6-6 in regulation. From the video looks like Dinamo could’ve scored an empty netter to seal their 2nd victory, but… oh well.

To answer the q-n yes, the KHL site will keep posting a lot of the games via the Sportsbox site. You can watch them live and later on demand.

And btw, don’t have to watch them on the tiny screen. Just click maximize on the player and you can watch it full screen, although pretty blurry, so kinda hard to see the puck.

[JZK: Right, randinno. It’s way too early to say, of course, but so many of the KHL games so far have been close and high-scoring — a real contrast to the Russian hockey of the past several seasons.]

Hey, thanks for more Dinamo Riga coverage! We’re still wary of their participation in the Russian league over here, but it’s been presented as a chance for the national team to play together and beef up playing consistently against tough competition. I guess the road trip to Siberia is the definition of tough… According to some league officials, Riga, as the only participant representing the EU, are a kind of guinea pig/bait for attracting other European teams — whose conservatism regarding Russian-run projects is a little more pronounced than our own. The thing is now not to go bust and not to become the laughing-stock of the tournament (which cannot be said now, when Dinamo is tied for the top spot in the league).

Anyway, a previous poster was right to point out that Arena Riga seats over 10,000 for hockey. It’s the arena built for the 2006 World Championships, and now it needs to pay for itself, so Dinamo might help that. Unlike Tatarstan or Bashkortostan, the Latvians don’t have any explicit bankrollers, so the team has to rely on fan interest.

[JZK: Thanks for this interesting info, Martin. I thought, though, that the Latvian gas company was a 39% investor in the team, as well as the former prime minister and former president. True?]

That’s why I said no “explicit” bankrolling… Of course, the entire league is an undertaking Gazprom, and they needed representation here for strategic reasons. Still, if you look at the so-called budget figures (payroll, really), which is the one piece of financial information that’s available openly, Riga (and a few others) are teetering just above the salary “floor” — and even that had to be scraped together. As for the exes, they’re both private investors without any real behind-the-scenes influence of the magnitude of, say, Putin. It’s a parliamentary system with proportional representation, so individuals don’t have the same kind of clout as in countries with presidential power or majoritarianism. They do matter, but they’re just micro-oligarchs, if you will, with public visibility, affluence, but no overwhelming control over the entire system. So, essentially, Dinamo is a private project, with a number of investors, and none of them have a deciding stake at the end of the day, and the state has no formal participation in it. (The Riga City Council just allotted some funding to Riga 2000, Dinamo’s farm team — and it’s by far not the biggest share of the revenues.)

Thanks for the coverage of the KHL. I watched the Avangard Omsk- AKA Bars game also. For those of you who want to watch Avangard Omsk (Jagr’s team) log onto Beyondtheblueshirts.com. They have the Avangard Omsk schedule and which games will be televised along with a “watch now” link. The feed was pretty good, only a few pauses. Great opening techo show. The NHL could learn from that.

Thats my boy Wade !! Im watching the game on that site which is posted, but do they have current games or what not ?? Im confused as the next person with all this Russian type talk. Im glad to see some Dubie fans out there, but the last time I texted him, he was doing well.

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